Finding Meaning in Time and Space: Periodisation and Taiwanese-centric History

Abstract

This essay explores the practice of a Taiwanese-centric historiography that prioritises the study of peoples rather than states. It reconceptualises the manner in which Taiwan’s history has been periodised by moving away from political history to divide time according to major transformations for the main long-term populations of the island—indigenous groups and multiple waves of Chinese settlers—and their interactions with each other, the governing entities, and the island itself. It traces the differential processes through which people created and adopted Taiwanese identities. Though not a traditional state-of-the-field essay, it builds upon a body of existing scholarship and demarcates Taiwan’s history into four eras at three watershed zones: the 1650s–1670s, the 1870s–1880s, and the 1970s–1990s. It draws connections to the study of Chinese history and uses scholarship on United States history for insights into the incorporation of indigenous and minority groups into a single narrative of the past.